We’re honored to announce that Better World Books has received two Social Innovation Awards today including “Best Social Investment Strategy” and the “Citizen’s Choice Award”. As always, we are grateful to you, the Better World community, for making these awards possible through your fantastic support!

The awards were handed out by Justmeans, “the world’s leading source of information and connections for people doing business better.” Cool!

Here’s the lowdown on the two awards:

The Best Social Investment Strategy award is given to companies that invest their financial assets in order to advance causes or programs that have both social and financial returns. At Better World Books we have invested our financial assets to scale the business and thereby scale our social impact – we’ve helped literacy around the world by raising over $9 million for literacy programs and helped save natural resources by re-using or recycling over 40 million books so far.

Other finalists for the Best Social Investment Strategy included J.P. Morgan, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, and Vodaphone Egypt. We’re honored to be in such great company.

For the Citizen’s Choice Award, anyone could vote on submissions. Since our idea was selected by the voting public, we’ll be featured within a USA Today insert called “The Power of Innovation”. So thanks for your votes! You’re helping get the word out about Better World Books every day, and now you’ve helped us reach a lot more people.

The runner up for the Citizen’s Choice Award was “The Best (Olive) Oil Producer” (http://thebestoilproducer.com/), a social enterprise aiming to serve the olive oil market better by connecting producers directly w/ customers & developing community on Lesvos, Greece.

Social Innovation Awards 2011We’re honored to announce that Better World Books has received two Social Innovation Awards today for “Finance: Best Social Investment Strategy” and for the “Citizen’s Choice Award”. As always, we are grateful to you, the Better World community, for making these awards possible through your fantastic support:

The awards, handed out by Justmeans, are “a forum for companies to highlight their latest practical applications for advancing social and environmental responsibility and innovation throughout their organizations.”

Here’s the lowdown on the two awards. For the Finance award, Social investment strategy refers to the ways companies invest their financial assets in order to advance causes or programs that have both social and financial returns. At Better World Books we have invested our financial assets to scale the business and thereby scale our social impact. We have consistently re-invested in the business, growing our impact to over $9 million raised for literacy and over 40 million books re-used or recycled, saving natural resources.

Other finalists for the Best Social Investment Strategy included J.P. Morgan, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, and Vodaphone Egypt.

For the Citizen’s Choice Award, anyone could vote on submissions. Since our idea was selected by the voting public, we’ll be featured within a USA Today insert called “The Power of Innovation”. So thanks for your votes! You’re helping get the word out about Better World Books every day, and now you’ve helped us reach a lot more people who will see that insert.
The runner up for the Citizen’s Choice Award was “The Best (Olive) Oil Producer” (http://thebestoilproducer.com/), a social enterprise aiming to serve the olive oil market better by connecting producers directly w/ customers & developing community on Lesvos, Greece.

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In addition, let me thank you again for your $80,000 gift to rebuild the New Orleans Public Library. You deserve to get recognition for the NOPL gift when 25,000+ librarians meet at the American Library Association conference in New Orleans in late June. Hope to see you there.